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How to Create Passive Income

How to Create Passive Income with this simple, but effective e-Business Strategy. But first...

What is Passive Income?

Passive income is where the amount you get paid isn’t directly proportional to the amount of work where you are actively involved. This isn’t like:• A job where you get paid so much per hour• A job where you get paid for each widget you make• A job where you receive an annual salary for turning up to work on so many days

Passive income examples include:• Earning rent as a landlord on a property• Dividend payments on shares – a share of the profits of a company you own• Income from advertising on your website

Passive income however is where you automate your income generating sources so they can run without you. You can earn money in your sleep – or during the day, during exams and whilst you’re out all night partying. Yes, passive income is awesome.

Another day in the office...

How to Create Passive Income

There is still work involved! You need to create a system where you can generate passive income. This can be (in theory) done at any time – I normally work hard in the first week of holidays – you will likely have to work hard for a short amount of time to set up your system.

If you’re system doesn’t work well (if at all!) then you end up in a horrible situation of working all day, just to earn a few meager pennies in your sleep.

You need a system that works.

Generating passive income is nowhere more easily than online. Since you’re reading this, it’s pretty safe to assume you’re web-literate. You know the difference between Google and Facebook. You know how to send an email. You know how to share the latest video of kittens on YouTube… right?

That all sets you up well to learn...

Just quickly, this ebusiness strategy is just that – a strategy. The technical ‘how-to’ parts come in later articles which you’ll find links to at the bottom. However, understanding this strategy, why and how it works will help you create your own e-business much better.

Content is what people are on the web to look for and use.• A stamp-collector will love posts on a stamp collectors forum• A mum will love reading about places to go on holiday• A fan of Apple products will be obsessed with every enGadget photo of the latest iGizmo• A teenager looking to create a passive income stream will love this article ;-)

You see how the web works? It’s all about content, and the more awesome (awesomer?) the content, the better.

Amazing content leads to...

Traffic

Traffic is the visitors, the people going to your content on the web; viewing your YouTube video, reading your article on a blog, listening to your bands recording on MySpace etc.

Getting traffic is crucial – without traffic, you have no potential people (customers) to make you any money. More importantly, targeted traffic is crucial. Someone randomly browsing through YouTube videos is probably far less likely to buy something than someone who has entered that product name into Google.

Finding and attracting targeted visitors with an intention to take that next step towards buying something is important, since each visitor has value.

Unlocking that value however requires...

PREselling

Building relationships with potential buyers (prospects) is important. We (us humans) buy from those we like and trust - two things which are difficult to build and create when the only point of interaction is a computer screen.

However, there are various ways of building trust and likability. People like to deal with people, not faceless corporations, and like to feel valued themselves as individuals. Regular contact via a medium of their choice (blog, email, YouTube channels etc.) with genuinely helpful advice, stories and tips all help build up a strong and trusting relationship with the potential buyer.

This increases the likelihood of...

Monetization

Monetization is when the money is made, or another response like ordering a brochure or requesting a phone consultation or something is received. It is ‘the goal’ which leads to money and is the result only from the previous Content --> Traffic --> PREsell motion.

So how is this passive income?

Once you write an article and publish it on the internet, it doesn’t need to be edited again. You don’t have to touch it.

Once you’ve got lots of visitors viewing your content, you don’t need to concentrate on building it up anymore.

Once you’ve prepared a series of auto-responder emails and other content for your visitors, besides the occasional email blast or blog post, you’ll likely not have to touch your process ever again.

And once you’ve prepared income-generating places on your website or wherever, where the work required by you is nil (advertising, affiliate marketing, referrals etc.) then you don’t have to do anything else to keep earning money.

As a teenager, passive income is fantastic since it gives you the flexibility to do what you want and still earn money. It could be the middle of exams, you’ve just broken up with your boyfriend or girlfriend and your parents have just died in a car crash – yet you would still be happily earning money, even in worse-case scenarios like that.

That’s why most of the teen business ideas I’ve put on here are web-orientated passive income businesses. Yes, work is involved… but nothing like slogging it out in McDonalds every weekend!

Passive income opportunities for teens are also fun (golden principle here = have fun + make money). If other people are interested in what you’re interested in, and money is being spent online, then you can make money writing about what you love.